MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be - Deadspin Comments

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

spine_11 — Tue, 11 Apr 2006 09:30:09 EDT

it's freakin' worthless. the blackouts are only during games you really want to see. who cares if i can watch it after it's over-i'm paying for the service to see it live!

spine_11

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

Iron Chef Xenu — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:00:56 EDT

Games that are using a Comcast SportsNet feed from Chicago on the Extra Innings package might also suffer from the fact that CSN randomly has technical difficulties and the games disappear or don't air even in Chicago. Last year was their first year on the air and this happened several times; we're hoping it doesn't happen again this year, but no one is very optimistic, as they continued to have problems with some Bulls broadcasts. They might have had problems with Hawks games too, but seeing as only half of them air to begin with, and no one watches them anyways these days, I doubt anyone would have noticed.

Iron Chef Xenu

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

major disaster — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:35:29 EDT

I once actually managed to get through to thejm on the phone (to cancel my subscription at the end of last season, after my emails to the address they told me to use for customer service got bounced back multiple times), and they claimed the blackouts were based on the your physical location (i.e., where you were accessing the internet from). But it's not true - it's based on your billing address, as was mentioned above. I lived in Boston (and accessed the internet from there) and was able to watch the Red Sox on MLB.tv for the last two years without any blackout problems. There's a link somewhere on the site that says the blackouts are determined based on your billing zip code. It gives lists of zips that are blacked out for each team. My zip code wasn't on the list for Boston because it's a new zip code that MLB.tv doesn't have for some reason ("new" being about 7 or 8 years), so I assume that's why I was able to access the games. As for the general problems with viewing, I always thought it wasn't great even before - tons of buffering, feed cutting in and out, freezing all the time. I finally gave in and got cable this year because I couldn't take it anymore.

major disaster

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

NYNick — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 13:23:48 EDT

I'm a displaced Yankees fan with two roomates, one from the south side of Chicago and the other from Boston, so needless to say we have a pressing need for both of these baseball packages. We subscribe to Extra Innings on Comcast as well as to MLB.tv. I wouldn't go getting all excited about the cable package. Games constantly come on in the 4th inning, black out mid-swing, and catch strange kinds of interference. Not to mention they always go with the Comcast Sports Net announcers where available making it absolutely necessary to mute the tube and listen to tunes. Some of these guys would kill for the speaking skills of Joe Morgan (insert sarcasm here) and are even more blatant than Hawk and DJ (White Sox announcers) when it comes to loudly cheering for the home team for nine innings while knowing absolutely nothing about the opposition. It's unbearable. As for MLB.tv, I've experienced all the same issues as you (slow buffers, multiple log-in attempts and all that), but it's worth noting that the service has been working perfectly on my Mac this season while my roomate's Windows computer has been having constant problems. I think this must be because of the new flash-based system as it's a 180 degree change from last year when I could never get the thing to work on my computer but my roomate never had issues. Gdluck to all you far-from-home hardball fans and LETS GO YANKEES!

NYNick

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

cowbell204 — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:38:51 EDT

anyone know how long its going to be until the multiple games feature is released?

cowbell204

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

HoyaSoxa — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:27:01 EDT

No problems here watching Red Sox games in DC last week. I am also really excited about the prospect of the Mosaiac- ability to watch 6 games at once. I used both Firefox and IE without incident, although I could not figure out how to make Firefox go to full screen mode.

HoyaSoxa

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

the700level — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:48:14 EDT

BK, my billing address is in the Philly market, but if I'm in Chicago I should be able to view Phillies games from there. This happened to me last year as well, but I was able to get through to a person and they fixed it. I've tried calling probably 10 times a day for the first week of the season to no avail.

the700level

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

cowbell204 — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:47:51 EDT

if you're having problems getting games to load, try changing your windows media player settings. load wmp, go to tools, options, and networkd, and have the following clicked; udp, http, and use ports 7000-7007. the double click on http under protocol, and change it to do not use a proxy server. I was having problems too until I found this out on the mlb.com support page. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/help/faq_technical.jsp#q...

cowbell204

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

D-Loose — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:29:37 EDT

I'm using Firefox with MLB TV on my laptop and I'm not having any major problems. Sometimes the feed can be a little skittish but usually closing the window and re-opening it seems to fix the problem. Plus, I've never had trouble with any Rockies games yet this year, and that's really the only reason I got it in the first place. Only trouble I've noticed with the archived games is that the picture quality isn't as good.

D-Loose

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

Andie — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:27:41 EDT

I have MLB.tv to watch Cardinals games in South Bend, IN and I was able to watch all 3 Phillies games no problem. The picture was fine, it wasn't slow or anything. I don't know about the Cubs/Cards series, because they were all on tv here since we're so close to Chicago. When you log in, it looks like it's asking you to subscribe, but it's not. You can just click on whatever game on the left sidebar and it comes right up. I also watched a Red Sox game Friday night on the program and that worked fine too.

Andie

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

jane — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 11:05:30 EDT

Aren't blackouts the fault of the FCC? I just do the MLB.com gameday radio thing, it's okay for the most part because I can just listen to day games at work. Also xm satellite radio carries all the radio broadcasts too, which is sweet.

jane

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

Benjamin Kabak — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:44:00 EDT

A few things. 1. Use Firefox. If you watch MLB.tv through Firefox, it loads the normal WMV plug-in instead of the Flash-based thing in Internet Explorer. 2. the700level: What's your billing address? The Phillies games may be blacked out if your billing address is in Philly. It's worked for me. Sure, it takes a minute at the start of the feed to buffer, but I've had no problems with the AV sync. Don't know about the archived games.

Benjamin Kabak

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

susan mullen — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:42:16 EDT

They operate a monopoly now expanding into many other businesses--no time for us. Soon you'll be able to order a carton of milk from MLB.com. But don't ask them to hold the cookies.

susan mullen

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

EricN — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:29:06 EDT

The blackouts are rediculous. I'm cancelling today.

EricN

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

Red Sox Chick — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:22:18 EDT

I ordered my Extra Innings package a couple of weeks ago...but I had to do it directly through my cable company by phone as every other avenue I took was ignored. So much for technology.

Red Sox Chick

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

WorldBeFree — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:14:49 EDT

I keep recieving emails thanking me for re-subscribing...over and over and over. Yet when I try to log-in, it asks me to subscribe. Extra Innings was free for the first week, but it better be taken care of now.

WorldBeFree

MLB.TV Not Quite As Cool As It Used To Be

the700level — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:08:10 EDT

The number they give has been busy for about a week straight. It won't allow me to watch any Phillies games from Chicago. While not being able to watch Phillies games may be a blessing in disguise, it is still bull shit that they are telling me the game is blacked out when clearly it shouldn't be. MLB.tv sucks.

the700level